The List Gets Longer

My well is leaking.

Huh?

Ok. Not exactly my well, but the pipe that runs the electric out to the well is carrying water back into the house.

My plan is to silicone the joint where it's leaking. Probably not the best permanent fix, but we'll see how well it lasts.

Now if it would just stop raining long enough for the ground to dry enough for the water to stop running in, I could actually try and fix it.

- b

Chores Before School

Not completely done before work, but I did get up early one morning and paint these spots in the kitchen.

The above had been a hole in the wall since June 2008. The switches below had been open and exposed the same period of time. Ouch.

Now it's all done or done enough - haven't decided which.

- b

Damp Sunday Chores

Today started out drizzling and breezy, so it was another day of inside chores.

I began with trimming a switch cover to install on one of two coverless switches we have in our kitchen.

Since adding the dimmable fluorescent switch, I've had to replace the cover, but any new cover in our house requires fitting and trimming to fit with our woodwork. Ideally I should move all the switch boxes away from the woodwork for better balance, but that's not happening anytime soon.

I thought this would be a quick job, but no. Turns out one of the switch screws that attaches the switch to the box was stripped (it's the box that's stripped, not the screw), so I had to fight and fight with it to get the switch positioned just right for the cover to fit. Finally used a toothpick jammed under the slipping screw to hold the switch in place at least until I got the cover on and screwed tight to the switches.

Bitch of it is that I should have used a larger cover. This one is too small. Doesn't cover enough of the wall around the switches and doesn't match the other cover plates we have, so at some point I'll have to do all this again for these switches.

Next job was finishing the dimmer switches we bought for the basement last spring.

I had only managed to get one dimmer in and not even really. The box had too many wires, seemed to small and I couldn't easily figure out the breaker for the other switch (the lights and switches are on different breakers?).

With the breaker situation figured out, I decided to replace the box with a deeper one I had. When I measured the new box against the old box just to be sure, I found out they were the same size.

Damn!

I got some coffee, a chair, and sat down to try and make the wires take up less space.

See the wire sticking out of the top of the box? If you look (real close) in the first picture you'll see the box screw hole is busted. While I was messing with making the wires tighter, I glued the screw hole and used that trash wire to hold it in place while it dried.

In the end, it all worked out pretty well.

Of course there are things I could do to make it a little better, but it's way better then having a dimmer switch hanging out of the box against the wall. Try fumbling for that in the dark.

Next on the docket was cleaning Yarnall's Demo 9.

I borrowed it back in August when I went downhilling with Buddy and Rick. Yeah, yeah, I'm lame for not returning it sooner, but he didn't need it and I was contemplating borrowing it again. Anyway, the big deal about borrowing Yarnall's bike is cleaning it before you return it. Makes sense huh? Maybe? Partly I hadn't returned it because I was afraid to clean it. I was afraid I wouldn't clean it well enough, so I pick a cold dreary day to do it. Genius right? I had a bucket of super hot soapy water, a rain jacket, wool hat and cold hose water to make the effort. Rinse, wash, numb fingers repeat.

I got to the point where I knew I made a good effort. I did all kinds of OCD things I don't even do with my own bike. It was during this time of obsession I found this.

(clicky makes biggy)

Looks like something out of Aliens, but that's not the point.

So the swing arm is cracked. Sent Yarnall an email with some pictures. Maybe now he won't notice the dirt I might have missed, though I'm hoping that's still more important then a possible cracked swing arm. I can't imagine my skinny little butt was the root cause of this.

Moving on.

I cleaned the pellet stove for the first time this season (that's the fire pot). I was kind of neglectful last spring and didn't clean it before the summer, so it was a little over-do. It was also a little rusty (not the red you see above, but where the red arrows are pointing below).



Not sure what that's all about. There were other places too. Maybe leaving the ash in all summer was a bad idea? Maybe it soaked up moisture or something? We'll see what it looks like next cleaning. Something tells me a week of solid clean burning will "fix" things. I'll just have to be sure I clean out the ash before the summers.

I also cleaned the stove glass today. What a difference that made, and it's simple! Just a wet paper towel and the glass is clear. I can see every lick of flame in the fire chamber. It's almost better then TV; then again, it is my TV.

After the stove I moved onto our "blue room" where we have boxes and boxes of crap in storage. Jen and I both have been randomly cleaning stuff out of there. So far our efforts have resulted in one trip to Goodwill and one trip to donate six boxes of books to the public library. We also have a large pile of stuff ready to be freecycled. Today's effort resulted in a pile of paper stuff I don't need anymore (to be recycled), finding my old Star Wars cards and other interesting goodies I'll have to post about later.

What a day. I'm exhausted, though staying out till midnight with a buddy from work last night probably had more to do with that.

- b

Rainy Day Jobs

Not much (I want) to do outside when it's 37°F and raining.

So it's a day for inside chores, which means I needed the truck, which was 440lbs. full of stuff to go to the dump.

Off to the dump the dogs and I went. Gretchen wasn't happy about it.

After the dump it was Home Depot to get insulation for the attic (great cold rainy day job).

But Jen wasn't home, working in the attic sucks, so I decided on something else (wasted trips?).

Since we've started using the pellet stove for the year, I decided to finish the electric project I started this summer in our downstairs hallway. - see it here. In that process I temporarily took out the programmable switch that powers the fan

(the switch is programmed to turn on/off the fan in sync with when the stove goes on/off) that moves the heat from downstairs to upstairs.

The programmable switch was in the box on the right. The original owners had installed this switch box to power two lights we don't use or have chosen to switch from somewhere else.

I could have put the programmable switch back in the box on the right, then find a cover for a decora switch and blank (pain in the ass), but I had another issue. The switch box on the left was wiggling. To kill two birds with one stone, I decided to put in a more stable three gang box on the left and either put a solid cover on the right box or just patch (w drywall) over it completely.

First step was getting the wiggly left box out. Mmmm wires.

Second was cutting the hole bigger (including my hand accidentally), rerouting some wires from the right box and putting in the new three gang box.

Now the box on the right is empty.

Next step was wiring up the light switches, programmable switch (which needed new batteries), and the receptacle powered by the programmable where the fan plugs in.

So it's all wired, programmed and plugged in, but no fan.

Hmmm.

Check this. Check that. Still no fan.

Call Dad.

He says try a regular single pole switch, maybe the ($30) programmable switch is bad?

Sure enough. Switch is bad.

Luckily I had another one. Not quite as functional as the first, but programmable none-the-less.

So that's done. The lights all work as they should and there's an automatic program powering the fan at the appropriate times for the stove.

I guess if I was really cool, I'd get a thermostatic switch to power the fan when the temp in the hallway reached a certain setting.

Maybe next time.

- b